A federal judge sentenced former top Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro to four months in prison and a $9500 fine for two counts of contempt of Congress after he was convicted of defying a lawful subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Speaking before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, against his attorneys’ advice, Navarro claimed when he received the subpoena, “I didn’t know what to do, sir.”
He also praised the judge, saying, “You have provided a roadmap.. to any future senior White House advisor facing a similar circumstance… I’m not only the first ever charged with this. I’m the last,” according to CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane.
Navarro previously had claimed the House January 6 Committee was a “kangaroo court.”
Navarro’s attorneys asked for a year’s probation, while the Dept. of Justice asked for six months in jail for each other two counts.
Just before handing down his sentence, Judge Mehta referenced “Navarro’s ‘Green Bay sweep’ — to have members of Congress challenge the results of the 2020 election and scrap electoral votes from some states,” MacFarlane reports.
“This case wasn’t about (January 6), but it’s important because that’s the subject matter of the Committee,” the judge noted.
Judge Mehta also made clear during sentencing he disagreed with Navarro’s claim he “didn’t know how this works,” MacFarlane also reports. The huge pointed to the contempt case of Steve Bannon as an example. “He’d been indicted two months before you got that subpoena. We checked.”
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Judge Mehta also disagreed with Navarro’s lawyers’ claim that he has accepted responsibility for his actions, and agreed with DOJ that the minimum sentencing requirement applies in this case, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported. Prosecutors reminded the judge, “This is a righteous prosecution. It was handled by career public servants.” They added, “The court should not countenance these accusations of political bias.”
As recently as Thursday morning Navarro was still calling his case “a very important, landmark constitutional case that is going to resolve important issues about the constitutional separation of powers.”
In court documents, as CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane noted, Navarro’s lawyers used language similar to that of Donald Trump’s attorneys:
“The government’s betrayal is manifest of its true motive– the prosecution of a senior presidential advisor of a chief political opponent.”
MacFarlane also reports that prosecutors during the sentencing hearing said: “even if the defendant had some good faith basis that he had executive privilege…… he didn’t behave in that fashion…. He didn’t appear for the deposition as required and invoke privilege.. he just thumbed his nose at the committee.”
Minutes before entering the courtroom on Thursday morning, Navarro, who has a PhD from Harvard in economics, urged his supporters to donate to help him pay his legal fees, which he claimed will surpass one million dollars. Dr. Navarro also claimed over 20,000 people have already made donations.
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